


All My Forgotten Poems

by tilda



Category: Panic At The Disco, Young Veins
Genre: M/M, Split-fic, Topanga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-17
Updated: 2011-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:17:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tilda/pseuds/tilda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spring 2009. Jon and Ryan hang out at Topanga and discover some things about each other and their band.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All My Forgotten Poems

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to greedy_dancer for the beta.
> 
> This is not super-canonical. I've invented some stuff, and telescoped the chronology a little.

Jon wakes up early when he stays at the canyon. He sits on the deck with a cup of coffee heating his palm and feels the first cigarette of the day fill his lungs. He can see the sun moving slowly up the valley toward the house, but he knows it'll be while before he feels it here. It's still chilly. He takes a sip of coffee, and a drag on his cigarette and remembers that movie, the one with the angels and the guy from Columbo. 'What would life be without a coffee and a cigarette?'. Something like that. He doesn't remember the words exactly, but it's pretty much how he feels right now.   
   
The first time he'd done this was a bitch. They’d gone to bed at 2 am, and Jon had woken four hours later, bright-eyed and jet-lagged but without the actual jet-lag. He'd made the cracks in the ceiling into rivers and trees until he realised he was never going back to sleep, then gone down to the kitchen and quietly opened cupboards and drawers until he found coffee. Then he’d caught sight of the rocking-chair on the deck in the light of the breaking dawn and that was it. He’d gone out there, the cool of the morning waking him more, and watched the sun come up, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes with a stolen airplane blanket over his shoulders, thoughts drifting.

Now it’s part of his canyon routine. Ry won't be up for another couple hours so Jon will play (quietly) and write and later he’ll nap on the couch to catch up. Now he gets up and shuffles inside for another cup, blanket trailing off one shoulder, and gets his notebook and pen too. He doodles around the punch-holes for a while before words start to come but then his third cup of coffee goes cold as he writes. Most of it's crap, but there's one or two lines that are okay and point towards something better, longer. 

A soft creak breaks the silence. Ryan's going to the bathroom. Jon goes inside to make a fresh pot. He's spooning grounds into the filter when he hears Ryan coming downstairs. The house is a crooked self-build Ryan bought from a rich old hippie who was moving in with his daughter in Santa Monica, and everything creaks.

He hears Hobo's claws clacking on the lino floor.

'Hey,'

Ryan's voice is sleep-rough. Jon feels Hobo nosing at his calf.

‘Hey yourself,’ Jon says.

Ryan forks some food into a dish for Hobo, then comes over and leans his hip against the counter. They watch the coffee drip into the pot together, not saying much of anything. Ryan's shellshocked from being awake and Jon's happy with silence. When it's brewed, Jon pours them each a cup and they drink it leaning against the counter. Hobo finishes eating and comes over and sits at their feet, looking up at them. Eventually Jon gives in and he opens the screen door and she bounds out, barking.

Ryan takes a long gulp from his coffee and says 'I wanna try something,' as he goes over to the couch and picks up a guitar from its stand. He puts the cup down on the side table and sits and strums the intro to the song they've been working on until he gets to the part they've been stuck on, then moves through some chords to make the bridge they've been missing. Jon goes over to pick up his guitar and sits on the stool. 'Wait,' he says. He starts playing from the beginning and Ryan goes back with him till they get to the bridge and Jon picks out a part to go with Ryan's new chords.

They make toast, and more coffee. Ryan steps outside and lazily throws a stick for Hobo, still holding his coffee. It sloshes over his hand with a more energetic throw. Jon is rolling a joint and can hear Hobo barking. Ryan comes in and puts his mug in the sink, wipes his hand on his jeans. He comes over and sinks into the couch next to Jon and takes the joint from him.

They write some more in the afternoon, sitting knee-to-knee in the little studio-room off the living-room. When they get hungry they graze from the open fridge, feeding scraps to Hobo bouncing around their legs.

Ryan plays frisbee with her. Jon watches them through the window. Hobo is so stoked she's practically flipping right over as she leaps. Jon pushes the screen door open and Hobo spots him and comes running up with the frisbee clamped in her mouth. Jon grabs it but she doesn’t let go and they have a battle of wills, Hobo growling, Jon baring his teeth and Ryan issuing instructions in his monotone. ‘Don’t let go, Hobes,’ he says, and ‘Hang on in there.’ Hobo gets a weird manic glint in her eye when they do this that makes Jon really glad this is playing and Hobo's small and so dumbly good-natured. Jon lets go finally and Hobo goes haring off around the yard, then comes back and deposits the frisbee at Jon’s feet anyway.

‘No way, man,’ says Ryan. ‘I disown that dog.’

As if she's heard, Hobo goes running back to Ryan and jumps up at him. Ryan stands with his arms folded, impassive.

‘You are anathema to me,’ he says.

‘Oooh, get that, Hobes,’ says Jon as he throws the frisbee to Ryan. ‘Daddy’s learned a new word.’

Ryan catches the frisbee neatly.

‘Fuck off,’ he says as he throws it back to Jon. Hobo leaps for the frisbee between them, her body jackknifing like a diver in the late afternoon sun.

~

Later, they open beers and Jon feels rebellious.

'I'm gonna put on some music,' he says.

'But Jon,’ Ryan says, all faux-serious. ‘We  _are_  the music.' They'd kind of half-agreed not to listen to anything while they were writing so they didn't get influenced.

'Fuck that,' Jon says and goes through his iPod, picking tracks which have nothing to do with what they're writing and sets it up in the dock. The intro to 'Just Can't Get Enough' starts and Jon sees one of Ryan's nanosecond smiles as he tips the beer up to his mouth.

‘Guess we better get used to this,’ he murmurs.

This could be a cue for them to bitch mildly about Bden and Spence but Jon doesn't feel like it. He goes out onto the deck to watch the last glint of sun disappear behind the mountain. Ryan comes out behind him. Jon nudges him with his elbow and says ‘hey.’ Ryan says ‘hey’ back and they watch the canyon darken together.

Jon makes dinner, and Ryan disappears into the studio. Jon chops onion, swiping away the tears with the back of his hand, and sliding it into hot oil in the pan. It sizzles and the kitchen fills with the smell. It’s always amazed Jon how frying some onions can make anyone smell like a genius cook. He’ll take what he can get. He takes a swig of beer and bops along to the music. He washes peppers, chops mushrooms, takes some ground beef out of the freezer. He’s just stirring in the tomatoes when Ryan appears at his shoulder.

‘Whatchya makin?’ he says obnoxiously around a pepper quarter he’s grabbed off the board.

‘Brown shit,’ Jon replies, settling the lid on the pot and turning the heat down.

‘Ooh, brown shit. Is it a special occasion?’

Jon’s cooking divides up into two main categories: red shit – the tomato-based veggie stuff they put on pasta, and brown shit, the same stuff but with meat.

‘Naah,’ he says, picking up his beer and leaning against the counter ‘Just fattening you up for the kill,’ He salutes Ryan with the bottle. Ryan grins around the last of the pepper. ‘Cool,’ he says inanely.

'Dork,' Jon says around a puff of laughter. He pushes off the counter and goes into the living-room. ‘Come on, let’s get fucked up.’

~

It's late. They're slumped on the couch staring at the corner with its unused powerpoint. They played some more, Ryan on the tambourine, Jon telling him he looked like Stevie Nicks, which made him shake his hair even more. Now they can’t move.

‘No TV’ says Ryan.

‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Me either.’

Jon drifts and thinks he dozes for a while. He shakes himself awake and sits up. He doesn’t know what time it is. He looks down at Ryan, whose eyes show a slit of pupil.

‘Hey, babes,’ he says, gently wagging Ryan’s knee back and forth. ‘we should head up.’

Ryan slides his eyes open and looks at Jon blankly for a moment, then he inhales deeply through his nose and gets to his feet, leaning heavily on Jon's shoulder for leverage.

‘Yeah,’ he says, the word hardly more than a shaped breath.

Jon nearly falls asleep fully-clothed on the bed waiting for Ryan to finish in the bathroom. Ryan gets carried away brushing his teeth when he’s stoned – ‘it’s like I get hypnotised’ - and Jon sometimes has to stage an intervention before his gums start bleeding. This time though, the sound of a door closing wakes him from his doze and he shuffles to the bathroom. When he comes out he can already hear Ryan gently snoring.

Most days at the canyon are pretty much like this.

~

It’s the next afternoon and they're playing guitar together, fast. They had smoked until Ryan sat up to stub out the roach and said croakily on the last outflow of smoke, 'Let's play some Zeppelin’. He got up and handed Jon's guitar to him, and Jon shuffled forward to the edge of the couch for a better playing position.

He feels pretty buzzy as he plays. It's slow-build of a song, and it's fun to play when you're a bit wrecked, if you get in the zone, the quick changes can go smooth and it feels like you're flying. He loves watching Ryan. His spidery fingers change shape quickly on the fretboard, his other hand a blur across the strings, and Jon plays his own part, feeling his teeth hum, his fingers finding the right strings before he knows it. A lock of Ryan's hair falls and sways over his forehead and he looks up then and catches Jon’s gaze. His face breaks into a simple, open smile as they play. Something moves inside Jon's chest and he mirrors Ryan's grin helplessly.

Jon becomes aware of a noise that isn't their guitars. It's an electronic, bleeping noise. He thinks blearily that they left something in the microwave, but that's not it. He stops playing and Ryan looks up and stutters to a stop too. The noise bleeps out into the sudden quiet. It's Ryan's phone.

'Fuck. That thing hasn't rung in days.'

Ryan gets to it too late.

'Spence,' he says, looking at the display.

Jon can sense them both trying not to let their smiles fall away too obviously. Ryan thumbs the recall button and Jon listens, slightly out of breath and fucking with Hobo, making her twirl around following his finger, to Ryan's broken off half of the conversation.

Ryan hangs up and says 'We're gonna meet at the studio tomorrow. They want... It'd be good to see what we've got.'

‘Cool,' says Jon. He puts his guitar in its stand and tries not to feel apprehensive. They last saw Brendon and Spencer the previous week. It feels like a lot longer. The days blur together in the canyon and Jon loses track.

~

They leave Hobo outside with some dry food in her dish on the deck, and drive down to the studio. When Ryan pulls into the parking lot, Jon can see Brendon and Spence’s car already there.

They play through the songs all of them know, and Jon can't help but feel weird about hearing them played with Spencer's ( _too poppy_ ) beats and Brendon's ( _too extravagant_ ) piano when he's used to hearing them on just guitars with maybe a tambourine or a harmonica. He knows this is how they will eventually sound, with maybe even strings and whatever else Brendon and their producer’s decided to throw in there, and he knows it's what their fans love and expect.

‘You don’t have to use _all_ the octaves, B.’

Of course Ryan can’t keep quiet. He never could.

‘Huh?’ Brendon looks up from the keyboard.

‘You know. Can’t you be a bit more, I don’t know, restrained?’

Jon manages to stop himself laughing out loud. How long has Ryan known Brendon, seriously?

Brendon looks at Ryan for a second, then plays a toned down version of what he was playing before. It’s really nice – harmonises really well with the song, instead of competing with it.

‘Yeah, like that,’ says Ryan, and goes back to fine-tuning his guitar. Brendon stares at him, and Jon knows that Brendon had been meant it as a parody of what Ryan wanted.

‘Might as well call the new album Pretty Dot Retro,’ Brendon says.

Ryan’s looks up from his pegs, his expression curdling.

 _Fuck_ , thinks Jon.

‘Better than Village People: The Comeback Tour,’ Ryan snaps back.

Brendon looks mutinous but Jon had seen his eyes go wide with hurt. ‘Hey. Guys,’ he says.

Brendon had never learned that he couldn’t take Ryan. He’d still go for him, like Clover thinking she could take on the neighbourhood strays. They hold each other’s gaze for nearly a moment too long before Brendon looks away first. Jon glances over at Spence, he doesn’t know why – for some sympathetic eye-rolling at their two egos-in-residence, maybe – but he’s busy adjusting the height on his snare, his mouth a tense line.

‘Shall we take it again,’ Jon says. ‘Spence? Count?’

Spencer nods briefly, and they go through it once more, Brendon trying to pitch the keyboards somewhere between the previous octave-scaling and the new polite harmony. It sounds awful.

Ryan and Jon play the new stuff they've been writing (seriously, they have half an album’s worth of songs already) and are careful not to look at each other when Brendon says that when they add some strings or accordion or choirs of angels or whateverthefuck, it should sound really good.

‘So what have you guys been up to?’ says Ryan when they've run through everything they have.

‘The waves have been going off,’ Brendon says, with that ridiculous eat-the-world smile that Jon still loves helplessly.

‘Yeah, we’ve just been ripping it up out on the ocean, dude,’ says Spence.

‘No,  _dude_ ,’ says Ryan, and Jon does shoot him a look because he hears danger in that inflection, but there is just enough softness around the eyes and mouth to show Ryan’s benign, for the moment. ‘I meant musically.’

And Brendon and Spence smile like, yeah, they knew that’s what he meant.

‘Oh, nothing finished,’ Brendon says. Spencer is standing up, stretching, pulling an elbow over his head, eyes cast somewhere to the side. ‘We thought we’d let you guys do all the hard work and take the credit, you know,’ he says, his grin slightly more forced.

 _He’s lying_ , Jon thinks suddenly, out of the blue. Brendon looks manic and Spence looks uncomfortable, not because they haven’t got anything to bring to the table, but because they have and they're hiding it. Are they worried about what he and Ryan will say? Has this happened before and he just didn't notice? He wonders if Ryan’s noticed. He feels something stir in his gut.

They pack away their instruments and go out to their cars. They hug each other goodbye with promises to meet up for a barbecue soon. Hobo and Bogart miss each other, they say.

Jon switches with Ryan for the drive back up the canyon and looks over at him a couple times as he drives. He’s silent, his head tipped against the window, eyes skittering over the passing scenery. Jon can pretty much guess what he’s thinking.

When he and Cassie decided to 'have a break', Jon had come to California to stay with Ryan and the four of them saw each other every second day, sometimes every day. Brendon and Spence brought the dogs over and they had barbecues and went exploring. Ryan had his near-death experience wandering in the dark out back, and Spence had freaked and helped them put up a barrier. And Jon tried not to notice that they weren’t playing music together. The play-dates got fewer and further between, and the last time they’d all been in the studio had been three weeks ago. 

Ryan doesn’t speak all the way up, and Jon leaves him to it.

Hobo comes rocketing over to them when they get out of the car and she can’t decide whether to run round in circles or lie on her back and tries to do both at once. Ryan scratches her belly and then picks her up by the forelegs to rub noses. ‘Hey kiddo, didya miss us? Didya?’

Jon drops to his knees by them and scritches the back of Hobo’s neck.

‘Man, I bet she had a ball. Catch us some coyote for the barbie, kid?’

She barks, three short yaps, like she’s answering them, and Ryan laughs.

They take their gear inside, Hobo at their heels.

Ryan futzes with their stuff in the studio, half-heartedly putting things away, but after a while he trails into the kitchen and levers himself onto the counter. Jon has taken two beers out of the fridge and he hands one to Ryan. Ryan takes a couple of sips but mostly just holds it propped on his knees. Jon swigs his, leaning against the counter, and they talk about the practice, about technical issues, the decent sound in the rehearsal space. Ryan mentions what a dick the studio manager is and Jon laughs and agrees. There is a brief silence. Ryan swings his feet and looks into his beer-bottle.

‘Are we breaking up, Jon?’ he says into the quiet.

Jon doesn’t answer immediately. He's thought about it, he won't deny, thought about being in a band with just Ryan, or with Ryan and other guys who aren't Brendon and Spencer. He's poked the idea and then shied away: it felt risky, like just thinking it could make it happen; like just thinking it was a betrayal. He wonders how much it cost Ryan to say it out loud.

‘I don’t know, man,’ he says carefully. ‘Maybe.’

He doesn’t want to push anything. He wants to let Ryan come to his own conclusions. He realises he feels a little like he did when he knew Cassie before they went out, when she was with the guy she eventually dumped for him. He listened, didn't say much, just waited.

They look at each other for a long while, trying to figure out the next thing to say. It feels like whatever they say next will be dangerous. Jon's not used to having brain-conversations with Ryan – he usually leaves that to Spencer – but it's surprisingly easy. He watches as Ryan's eyes catch light, and feels his own mouth twitching in a trying-not-to smile. Then Ryan pushes himself off the counter and walks into the living-room.

‘When’s food gonna be ready? I’m starving.’ He picks up his guitar and slings the strap over his head. When he looks at Jon his eyes are on fire.

‘Fuck knows,’ Jon says. His brain is exploding. _They’re breaking up._  Then he goes over and picks up his own guitar and Ryan’s face splits into a shit-eating grin that you only get to see maybe twice a year and without saying anything they both launch into ‘Change’.

They play so late Jon misses his usual early morning with the birds and the canyon, but he doesn’t care.

~

Ryan is up before him the next day and after knocking softly comes and sits on the edge of his bed and smokes and stares out the window, a delicate filigree of grey-blue smoke floating above his head. He's wrapped in a huge ancient cardigan over a t-shirt and pajama bottoms, his eyes are puffy and he has bed-head that should be hilarious but makes something constrict in Jon’s chest. Jon shifts under the covers, stretches his foot out. Ryan looks over at him.

‘We’re gonna have to tell them,’ he says.

‘Not yet,’ says Jon without thinking, sleep-dazed. He doesn’t know why he said that, but Ryan seems to understand because he nods.

He becomes hyper-aware that Ryan is in his room. They don't usually go into each others' rooms - they have the rest of the house to share. Jon feels self-conscious suddenly, and without moving, tries to spot any dirty underwear lying around. But Ryan doesn't seem to care. Neither of them say anything and it's comfortable. It’s just them now, Jon thinks, they’re not in a band anymore. Or they’re in a band of two. He realises he doesn't want to tell Brendon and Spencer yet because it's theirs, it just belongs to him and Ryan and he doesn't want the world to know about it yet. He feels free and afraid at the same time. They'll have to tell the rest of the world soon and it will start a whole inevitable chain of events that they'll have no control over. And then they won’t have the Panic machine behind them anymore, and they could fail and never be heard of again.

‘Are we gonna be okay?’ Ryan’s voice breaks into his train of thought.

Jon's not so crazy about these super new mind-reading skills they seem to have acquired.

‘Sure we are,’ he says. He sits up and runs a hand through his hair. ‘Come on, let’s go watch some coffee drip.’

~

Jon’s camera is seriously full and needs uploading. He starts flipping through the pictures to delete the duds before he connects to the laptop. He keeps showing the really stupid ones or the really good ones to Ryan and before long he’s forgotten about uploading and they’re both sitting on the couch, Ryan making bitchy comments about Jon’s photography skills, and Jon laughing at how dumb Ryan looks in them.

Suddenly Jon is looking at himself sleeping on the couch in the afternoon sun.

'Shit,' Ryan says in a shocked yelp. 'I forgot I took those. I meant to delete them.' Ryan makes to grab the camera but Jon elbows him away.

‘No way, Ross. This is payback. Let’s see _your_ mad photo skills, kiddo.’

He’s not expecting to see anything more than himself drooling, or with his nose dragged up against a pillow, so he’s not prepared when he sees that they're  just of him, Jon, sleeping in soft yellow afternoon light. They’re really good pictures. There are three or four, with a couple showing Hobo asleep too, curled against Jon’s shins. They remind him of some Cassie took a couple years back when they were first together.

‘Aw,’ says Ryan, and Jon hears a strange quaver in his voice. ‘You looked so cute, I couldn’t help it.’ Ryan is not looking at him, just smiling stiffly at the camera-screen.

‘Well, you know, I can’t help how handsome I am,’ he says in a stupid voice of his own. He wonders if Ryan’s convinced by his acting. It sounds pretty bad to Jon. They go through the rest of the pictures, but Jon doesn’t hear much of what they say. He’s not sure they say much anyway. They finish and Jon gets up off the couch and uploads the pictures and feels like he has to get out of the house. He waves his empty camera at Ryan and says he’s going for a walk. Even though they often ramble off together through the woods and up the mountain, Ryan doesn’t offer to come with him and Jon is relieved.

He gets to the top of the mountain and sits on a rock and looks out over the canyon and freaks out a little.

He’s been taking photographs for long enough to know that pictures tell you as much about who’s taking them as what’s in them.  He thinks about Ryan trying to wrestle the camera from him. He thinks about Ryan taking those pictures, keeping quiet so as not to wake Jon, about what he saw through the viewfinder, about why he thought they were worth taking, about why he meant to delete them. Ryan has always had secrets, and Jon's always been happy to let him keep them, but he never guessed that he might be one of them. Not since he first joined the band anyway.

Jon feels the sun making a warm patch on the top of his head. He rests his arms on his knees and pokes the ground with a stick.

He'd had trouble telling the Panic kids apart at first - they all had - but he remembers when one of them had come to him with a broken guitar pedal and Jon had said that sure, he’d take a look at it. ‘Thanks,’ the kid had said flatly, his eyes sliding away from Jon’s. And Jon had remembered that they hadn’t even finished high school when they recorded their album. Maybe a couple of them hadn’t even graduated? Whatever, they were kind of young and awkward. So Jon had fixed the pedal and taken it to Panic’s next soundcheck, and the kid had said ‘Cool,’ in that same flat tone, and Jon had said ‘No problem.’ Then something had made him add ‘I’m Jon Walker by the way,’ and the kid had said ‘I know. I’m Ryan Ross.’ And so after that, a part of the mess of weird/young/awkward that was The Academy’s support band had separated itself and gotten a name and become someone he exchanged hellos and a few words with every now and then. And he’d found out that Ross was actually the oldest of the four, which he might have found bizarre if he hadn’t already seen him in soundcheck quietly ruling his band with that flatiron voice; or some of their interviews when the interviewers asked a question Ryan didn't like and the look Ryan would give them. Jon felt kind of sorry for the interviewers even though, yeah, they did ask some dumb questions. Ryan's look of disdain reminded Jon of those hipster girls back home who wouldn't look at him twice.

But Ryan looked at him more than twice, and they'd hung out a little more and talked about music and Ryan mocked him for the contents of his iPod and Jon had found out that Ryan had never heard Sergeant Pepper and said 'Jeez, what do they teach you kids in school these days?' and had taken Ryan's iPod and put a bunch of stuff on it and after that, Ryan opened out a little, became a little easier to read.

And then he'd been on the middle step up to the Panic bus one day, on his way to find Ryan, and he'd overheard Brent (he could tell them all apart now, even by voice) saying 'I don't know, what would  _Jon_  do, Ryan?' and then Spencer said 'Yeah, what does  _Jon_  think?' and Ryan had said 'Fuck off' and Jon had thought ' _Oh_.' And he got on the bus like everything was normal, which it was, totally normal.

But after that, when he realised that Ryan wasn't just tolerating Jon and his music taste, that he listened to Jon, and possibly even hung on Jon's every word, Jon had let himself get a little bedazzled by this freaky wannabe-hipster girl-boy. And then Jon had joined the band and they got used to each other and Ryan met Keltie and Jon missed Cassie and it – whatever ‘it’ was – died away.

Jon loves Ryan. He loves the music they make together and has always been a little blown away by how they just click, even though they are such different people. Now Keltie's gone, and although he and Cassie call, they've got their own lives, and here it is again, this thing between him and Ryan that he can't put a name to.

He goes back down the mountain simply because he can’t stay out there all night. He hasn't come to any conclusions. He has no idea what he's going to do or say when he gets back. He hopes something will occur to him. Luckily, when he turns the final corner that brings him in sight of the house he sees smoke pouring out of the kitchen window and he doesn't have to worry about what he's going to do anymore because he's moving automatically, with only one thought in his head. He's running down the slope and careening through the screen door with his hand over his face, expecting, fuck, he doesn't know what, billowing flames or something, but it's just smokey and hot and he's chanting 'Ryanryanryanryanryan' in his head as he runs through the house, like the crowd at one of their shows, with visions of Ryan passed out on the couch or the bed with flames licking around him. He's not in the sitting-room, so Jon takes the stairs three at a time. He slams into Ryan's room which is actually such a mess Jon has to shake the bedclothes to make sure Ryan's skinny-assed body isn't hiding in the folds. It's not. So even though he's realised there's no smoke up here, and he hasn't actually seen any fire, he's still freaking out.

Then he looks out the window and sees Ryan sitting out back on the grass with Hobo, hugging his knees and looking forlornly at the house. Jon can see smoke from the kitchen drifting toward him, and he realises that's the only smoke coming from the house and nothing is on fire. He feels like a dick. He runs back down the stairs, out the back door and pulls up out of breath in front of Ryan, who looks up at him with mild surprise.

'Hey,' he says.

'What the fuck, Ross?'

'I was making dinner. How come you were in the house? I thought you'd gone for a walk.'

'I came back. I'm sorry. I think I misheard. For one insane moment I thought you said you were making dinner.'

Ryan’s expression stays flat.

‘You always do it,’ he says.

Jon sinks to the ground on the other side of Ryan from Hobo.

'Yeah, I do,' he says, 'But that’s because I get the impression you like this house and you want to keep it.'

He looks up at the smoke still drifting out of the kitchen window.

Ryan scritches Hobo's ears. 'I just...' he says.

And Jon feels relief flood through him.

'Fuck. C'mere,' he says, pulling Ryan against his side. He plants a kiss on the top of Ryan’s head, breathing him in for a second before letting go. Ryan's hair smells of greasy kitchen smoke. 'Jesus, what were you cooking?'

'Those orange fish things'

Jon was saving them for the next barbecue. _Outdoors._ He laughs and he sees Ryan duck his head to hide a rueful half-smile and Jon thinks,  _oh god_.

They open all the doors and windows and the smoke eventually disperses. They have barbecue because it still smells kind of funky indoors. Jon gets all fancy and glazes steak before laying it sizzling on the hot grill while Ryan makes a salad without exploding the house. It seems like the weird feeling from the afternoon has gone, and Jon thinks that maybe he can do this. He doesn’t have to lose his mind. After they’ve eaten Ryan plays the ukelele and Jon gets Ryan’s harmonica from the studio and they take it in turns to do Bob Dylan impressions until Ryan coughs up half a lung from doing the grizzly voice. They smoke and get blankets and carry on sitting outside in the dark, reluctant to go inside the still slightly-off-smelling house. And Jon rocks in his chair and listens to the cicadas and Ryan talking and thinks that despite what he saw in the camera and on Ryan’s face, maybe it’ll be okay.

And when they go up maybe it’s not such a good idea to lean forward impulsively and kiss Ryan goodnight on the cheek, his mouth landing somewhere a little west of Ryan’s, because he sees Ryan’s expression as he pulls away, but that was just one mistake and he won’t do it again, he promises himself, he’ll be careful. It’s still gonna be okay, Jon’s pretty sure. He shucks off his jeans and t-shirt and gets into bed and pulls the covers over himself and closes his eyes. It’s gonna be okay.

Half an hour later he’s still wide awake.

Sometimes weed does this to him. Makes him feel heavy, his eyelids weighted, but when he closes his eyes his mind’s buzzing. He’s been thinking about the band, and his and Ryan’s music, and this new song he’s been writing and yes, Ryan and those fucking pictures and what it means, and he wants it to stop. He opens his eyes. His mouth feels dry and sour. He sits on the edge of the bed, running his hand through his hair until it probably looks nuts. It feels nice against his palm though. Glass of water. He gets up and goes to the bathroom.

There's not much light in the upstairs hallway, just whatever residual moonlight and starlight that comes through the windows of the unoccupied rooms and from downstairs. Jon senses a movement and looks up. Ryan is a half-illuminated shadow at the other end of the hallway. He’s wearing boxers and an ancient, shapeless Academy t-shirt. They look at each other for a moment and something crashes through Jon, he doesn't know what, and he thinks  _I can’t do this_ , then he’s walking along the hallway towards Ryan, bathroom, glass of water, everything else forgotten.

When they kiss, Ryan comes to him easily, his starving mouth driving open against Jon’s and it’s kind of insane and hot and not like anything Jon’s ever experienced before, his hands caught up in Ryan’s hair and Ryan pushing him against the wall, his whole body along Jon’s, warm and solid in a way that Jon would never have guessed or expected, but still not heavy enough, and he doesn’t know where that thought came from, he didn’t know there was a part of him that wanted Ryan to be heavier, not for his own health, but so he can press harder against Jon’s cock, but there is, and it’s the part of him that’s flipped them now so that Jon is crowding Ryan against the wall, and it’s the part of him that loves it when Ryan’s knee slides between Jon’s and he thinks  _this is real_  as their hard-ons suddenly lodge against each other through the thin material of their underwear, dragging perfect and sparking, making his eyes sink shut and he can feel their mouths landing clumsily, wet breath on cheek and neck, and fuck, holy holy _fuck_ , this isn’t gonna last for either of them so Jon just drives against Ryan, grinding them together, feeling Ryan’s fists in his hair as he thrusts, six, seven, eight, and then he’s coming, hard and sweet, and he can feel Ryan jerking against him and crying out.

Jesus holy mother.

They’re both breathing like they’ve just run a marathon. Jon is shaking a little and not sure he’s gonna be able to stand up without the help of Ryan and the hallway wall.

‘Holy shit,’ says Ryan into his ear.

Jon laughs a little into Ryan’s shoulder.

‘I guess we had that saved up for a while,’ he says.

‘Yeah, um,’ Ryan says. He straightens a little and Jon moves back, their bodies separating. ‘It’s out of the way now. We can concentrate.’

 _I was concentrating_ , thinks Jon.

‘Yeah,’ he says on an exhale that sounds like a sigh of relief.

‘Uh, I’m going to the bathroom. I’m kinda…’ and Ryan waves a hand in the general direction of his damp boxers.

‘Sure,’ says Jon and moves away to let Ryan go. He wants to say ‘That’s not what I…’ but he doesn’t know how to finish the sentence so he doesn’t say anything. He hears the bathroom door close behind him and he stands there staring at the wall before blinking out of his torpor and going to his room. He falls onto his bed without even changing his underwear and just before he falls asleep he registers distantly that the sheets are still warm.

~

When he wakes up he doesn’t remember what happened in the hallway immediately, then he blinks wide awake all of a sudden, staring at the ceiling. _It’s out of the way now_ , he remembers, _we can concentrate_. He goes to shower, and when he takes off his crusty underwear the urge to put them in the trash instead of the pile of dirty laundry is strong. The house is silent when he goes down to make coffee, Ryan not up yet even though it’s later than usual. He goes out onto the deck – the blankets are still draped in the chairs, but they were careful to bring in their instruments. Jon feels the cool morning air on his face and he wakes up a little more. The coffee is ready and he sits on the deck with his notebook as usual, but nothing comes. After sitting wrapped in the blanket and staring blindly out into the canyon for a while he gets up to pour another coffee and finds he’s finished the milk. They’ll need to go grocery shopping. He can go now, just take the car while Ryan’s asleep. It’ll be quiet and he’ll be able to pick up everything they need without any hassle. He'll take Hobo too.

Driving down the canyon, he can sense the house getting further behind him, as if he’s attached to it by a string. The early sunlight flashes through the trees, dazzling him, and he has to pull down the eyeshade. He ties Hobo up outside the store and tools around slowly, leaning on the cart and feeling the artificial cold drifting out of the fridges. The girl behind the counter knows him and they exchange a few words about the state of the canyon-road and she asks after Ryan. When she says his name Jon has a sense-memory of Ryan’s mouth against his neck and he replies automatically. He misses what she says next and he smiles and says, sorry, zoned out there. Business is slow so when Jon leaves with his bags she comes out to say hey to Hobo who barks and licks her hands. They say bye and Jon closes the car-door and looks at Hobo in the rearview, panting at him from the backseat, her life simple and dog-like. Jon wishes he were Hobo. He says 'Hey girl,' and turns the key in the ignition.

When they get back Hobo scratches at the screen door while Jon gets the groceries from the backseat and pushes the car-door shut with one foot. Ryan bangs open the door to let Hobo in and Jon sees them disappear into the house. He follows with the bags into the kitchen, setting them down on the counter to unpack. Ryan usually helps him stowing stuff away, even if Jon’s been to the store on his own, but he’s nowhere to be seen. He goes out to the living room and can’t stop his eyes darting to the studio – the door is shut, and no sound is coming from behind it. Ryan probably has his headphones on. It’s a given that if one of them is in there with the studio door is shut, you leave them alone. Jon thinks about going in, thinks about Ryan looking up from his guitar, his mouth shaped into a questioning ‘o’, a small frown between his eyebrows. He has a strange urge to take his own guitar outside and climb the little rise opposite the studio window and sit there playing so Ryan can see him from inside.

He realises suddenly it’s the kind of toolish, annoying thing Brendon would do. Jon doesn’t know where this sudden urge to channel him came from, but he kind of enjoys its presence. The unspoken consensus was always that Brendon didn’t know how to deal with Ryan when he was being…Ryan-ish, but Jon thinks maybe he had the right idea after all. Jon misses him all of a sudden. And Spencer. Brendon is nuts but at least you know what he’s thinking, and Spencer’s just Spence. Easy. Steady. All the boring things he knew Spencer hated being called but were true anyway. He almost calls Brendon to tell them he’s changed his mind and he doesn’t want to break up, and then remembers they haven’t said anything yet. Maybe it’s salvageable, he thinks suddenly. They haven’t made the decision public yet, there’s still time to try and work things out. Maybe they just need to talk.

But how do you talk out the difference between late-period Peter Gabriel and early Bob Dylan? How do you reconcile synths, accordions and the kitchen sink with acoustic guitars and songs about missing your girlfriend? They’re two different bands pretending to be one, they have been for a while, and even though he and Ryan haven’t said anything yet, Brendon and Spencer seem to have formed their own unit of two, with their own music. Maybe nothing needs to be said.

He sits on the couch and noodles on his guitar, his gaze occasionally wandering to the studio door, until Ryan emerges about an hour later. His eyes widen and his head makes a small pecking movement when he sees Jon, like he wasn’t expecting to.

‘Uh, hey,’ he says, eyes sliding away.

‘Hey,’ says Jon, and watches him cross over to the love-seat and slump into it. Ryan looks toward the window. ‘What are you doing?’ he says.

‘Nothin’ much. You?’

‘I was working on some stuff.’

‘Good?’

‘I don’t know yet.’ He moves his shoulders up and down against the back of the seat. ‘Maybe?’

He catches Jon’s eye occasionally but his gaze won’t linger. He’s totally crawled away into himself and is unreachable. It’s disorienting when this happens because it’s suddenly as if they’ve never been friends, just co-workers. Fellow-professionals.

Jon decides to deal with the situation the best way he knows how. He leans on one elbow and reaches over to the side-table and picks up papers, baggie and lighter and brings them over to the coffee-table in front of him and starts to roll. He knows Ryan’s watching him now, not just because from the first time Jon got him stoned, Ryan’s never been able to hide his fascination with the process, but also because it’s safe for Ryan to watch - with Jon focused on what he’s doing with his hands, there’s no danger of eye-contact. He crumbles in about a third more weed than usual. He lights it and hands it to Ryan.

They get completely fucked.

He loses track of how much they smoke. Somewhere in the middle of it they play for about an hour, starting fast and intense, but gradually slowing down to desultory picking. By five they’re immobilised and they fall asleep in their places, Ryan tying his limbs into a knot on the love-seat, and Jon just tipping sideways on the couch.

He wakes at 10.30, thinking it’s 10.30 in the morning, but knowing it’s not because it’s dark out. He feels upside-down. He sits on the couch, his arms lying loosely either side of him, and that weird metallic feeling you get in your mouth when you wake up at the wrong time. He watches Ryan sleeping. His head is tipped back against the chair and his mouth is open. He's making Darth Vader noises on each inhale. Jon should take a picture of him. Yesterday or a week ago he would have, and maybe even set his camera to video so he could get the noises too and it would become a source of prime mocking material. Sometimes Ryan’s so much like a cat it’s not even funny, even down to still pretending he’s queen of the universe when he’s just been caught looking totally undignified.

Jon’s gradually waking up. He realises he's starving. He shambles into the kitchen and gathers stuff for a giant Scooby sandwich. He hears Ryan waking up as he’s pressing down the top slice of bread and just taking his first jaw-cracking bite when Ryan shuffles in. He watches the sandwich in Jon’s hand with huge piteous eyes but Jon just chews and nods over to the countertop with its wreckage of tomato-ends and mustardy knives. Ryan huffs vaguely and looks at Jon.

Jon rolls his eyes and sets his sandwich down on the counter, taking up the big bread-knife. ‘C’mere,’ he says thickly, chewing and swallowing. He cuts the sandwich carefully in half and pushes the uneaten half over to Ryan. Without moving his features Ryan manages to look totally triumphant, and carefully picks up his half of the sandwich. Jon’s gaze snags on his fingers. Even though he’s known Ryan for years Jon still finds himself doing this. Seriously, he has the longest, weirdest fingers ever. They look like they’ve been designed by Tim Burton. They eat messily, standing up, hands darting to catch falling bits of lettuce and shitty, crumbly bread. Ryan gets a mayo drip on his wrist and he catches it in his mouth, his eyes fluttering closed as he sucks the last of it off. Jon stills as he watches, his stomach folding so violently he’s worried he’s gonna be sick. But it’s okay, he keeps his cookies, and finishes the rest of his sandwich before he starts making a second. Ryan back-seat cooks at his elbow, 'more mayo', 'ooh, I know, ketchup,’ which Jon vetoes. Jon balances it all together and somehow it doesn't collapse when he cuts it in half.

Maybe Ryan was right. It was something they needed to ride through, get out of the way. Jon thinks it’s gonna be okay now.

~

And it is okay. Ryan doesn’t shut himself up in the studio again. He finishes another of their songs. Jon feels proud and confused at the same time. Usually Ryan abandons songs and Jon steps in. This time Ryan’s doing it on his own. It’s cool though, yeah, it’s cool.

They play with Hobo and throw sticks for her and laugh when she almost does a full 360 jumping for one of them. They go for rambly walks up the mountain and Jon takes pictures of the sunset from up there a couple times. He sleeps in the afternoons and when he wakes up he doesn’t wonder whether Ryan took his picture without him knowing again. He knows Ryan didn’t.

They have barbecues for just the two of them, no Brendon or Spencer. They play ‘beach’ volleyball with Hobo running back and forth, swapping sides. She gets some good shots over the net. Ryan doubles his own points when he calls them and Jon narrows his eyes and says ‘Are you cheating, Ross?’ and Ryan tries to look innocent and fails dramatically. Everything’s normal.

Except sometimes when it isn't.

Except once when they get stoned and Jon forgets himself and puts his head on Ryan’s lap. Ryan pushes him off gently, gets up and goes to the kitchen, calling ‘We got any chips?’ and Jon feels the warm patch where Ryan was just sitting against his cheek. ‘Cupboard underneath the silverware,’ he says without moving. Ryan doesn’t hear him and comes back eventually, and instead of sitting where he was before next to Jon, he flops into the love-seat opposite. ‘Shit, we’re out,’ he says. Jon pushes himself back into a sitting position, drawing his gear towards him, and doesn’t trouble to put him right.

Jon’s in the kitchen and Ryan’s reached up to grab the doorframe with his fingertips and is swinging slowly, his pajama bottoms riding down his hips, revealing a terrifying amount of bare skin. A week ago Jon might have charged Ryan, knocked him off his feet and bundled him onto the couch. He stays where he is. Ryan rattles on about how they’re gonna look – looks forward to getting some suits fitted maybe, narrow, 60s cut, skinny ties. Jon says, ‘I thought we’d left Panic,’ and Ryan stops swinging and before he turns and walks away, his expression closes over like ice forming in a time-lapse film. Jon doesn’t call him back.

Jon's stopped writing. He knows it's normal, it's happened before and he's gotten over it. He just sits on the deck and plays other bands’ songs and waits for his mojo to come back. He goes over the songs they have, fine-tuning them and hopes Ryan doesn't notice that he's not actually making anything new.

~

Ryan is in the studio and Jon is on the couch writing Tom an email on the laptop when his cell rings. It’s Cassie.

‘Hey, how’s it going?’ she says, and at the sound of her voice, out of nowhere, Jon is on the sharp edge of tears. He feels like he did once or twice calling his mom from summer camp. He doesn’t think he can speak without falling apart and contemplates hanging up. He closes the laptop and breathes. ‘Jon?’ she says. He drags himself together and says ‘Uh, good. You?’ Single syllables are good. He’ll stick to those. ‘I’m okay, Jon. What about you? You don’t sound so…’

He realises that he can tell her about the break-up. It’s a plausible reason for him being upset. Fuck, it’s not _plausible_ , he  _is_  upset about it. ‘Um, I guess, we’re uh, breaking up. The band, I mean. Me and Ry are gonna leave. We decided.’

‘Uh-huh. Didn’t see that one coming,’ she deadpans.

‘Yeah, I guess it was obvious.’

‘How are Brendon and Spencer taking it?’

‘We haven’t said anything yet.’

‘Oh,’ she sounds taken aback.

‘Yeah, it just feels like our thing right now. We don’t wanna…’

Jon hesitates just long enough.

‘You’re scared.’

Shit.

‘No.’

Cassie stays silent, but Jon can hear her eyebrows talking.

‘Yeah, OK, we’re chicken. But fuck, Cass. What if it doesn’t work out?’

This is good. He’s getting things off his chest. Cassie’s always been great at this stuff. They were always better friends than anything else.

‘You’ll be stuck with a high-strung limelight whore and no limelight.’

Jon feels a flower of anger bloom in his chest.

‘Hey, that’s not fair,’ he says, a steely edge to his voice. ‘Ryan wouldn’t be leaving Panic if that’s what he was.’

‘Woah, I was kidding, Jon.’

Jon feels exposed all of a sudden, like he’s just been caught singing into his hairbrush in front of the mirror. Cassie speaks again quietly, almost to herself. ‘Shit, you’re really…’ she says and trails off.

‘I’m really what?’

‘Nothing. So are you writing much?’

She’s thrown him a life-jacket and he grips it between both hands.

‘Yeah! It’s amazing. I don’t know what’s happened, it’s like someone’s lit a fire under us.’ And he shakes away the thought of himself sitting with a blank notebook in front of him, and the memory of pushing Ryan up against the hallway wall, hand on his dick, because it’s nothing, it’s gone, no-one needs to know. ‘Four more songs since we got here,’ he babbles on. ‘Plus two half-done. We can’t stop. I don’t know, Cass, we’re just so, like, in tune.’ And then he realises what he’s said. ‘Ha ha. No pun intended.’

‘That’s awesome, Jon,’ she says, and he can hear her smile. ‘I’m really happy for you.’

And there’s something weird about that phrase, but Jon can’t put his finger on it and can’t be bothered to try. They talk about the kids (Marley and Clover) and what Cassie’s been up to – she mentions seeing a guy she likes and Jon teases her but then says ‘that’s great’ and catches himself about to say ‘I’m really happy for you’, realises he’s about to echo what she said to him before, and feels his face burn. They wrap up the call and he hangs up.

He holds the phone between his fingers and looks at it for a couple of seconds, strokes his thumb reflexively over the screen. He hears the studio door open.

‘Who was that?’

He looks up and sees Ryan leaning in the studio doorway. He has his hips cocked, one knee splayed, and his hands hooked in his back pockets. He’s wearing a white tee and jeans, has bare feet, muppet hair. He is ridiculously beautiful. Jon’s throat closes. He swallows so he can speak.

‘Cassie. I told her about the break-up.’

He looks down between his knees, at his phone, away from Ryan. And at this moment he’s so glad they’re breaking up, not because it’s the right thing to do or because they’re moving in different musical directions or any of that, but because it gives him a really good cover for why he’s so fucked up. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have?’

‘Uh, well, maybe we should talk to Brendon and Spence before we start telling other people?’

‘Yeah. It’s just. It was Cass,’  _and she heard something wrong in my voice because she’s a fucking psychic weirdo and I had to tell her something_  ‘so I thought, you know…’

‘…it’d be okay. It’s okay, Jon. Don’t worry.’

Jon’s brain is a plate of spaghetti. Why is Ryan reassuring him? That’s not how it usually works.

Ryan comes to sit next to him on the edge of the couch and busses shoulders with him.

‘Come on. I don’t care. We’ll talk to them next time we see them.’

Ryan’s t-shirt sleeve is brushing Jon’s bare arm. He gets up, slipping the phone in his back pocket.

‘Yeah,’ he says, forcing brightness into his voice. ‘For sure.’

But something’s broken open inside him and is spilling everywhere. He feels like a cracked egg.

‘Do you wanna play?’ Ryan asks.

‘I’m kinda tired, Ry,’ he says. ‘I’m gonna go take a nap.’ He usually naps on the couch, but now he goes upstairs to his room and shuts the door. He lies face down on the bed, bunches a pillow under his head and closes his eyes. He doesn’t expect to fall asleep, but a couple minutes later he does.

~

The sound of a hesitant knock wakes him, so quiet he's not sure if he imagined it.

'Yeah?' he says anyway, mouth cottony.

‘Uh, hey,’ Ryan says.

‘Hey. What’s up?’ Jon says peering over his shoulder. Ryan is sliding half his body round the door.

‘Are you okay?’

 _No_ , Jon thinks, turning over and settling on his back.  _I love you and I’ve fucked up everything and I want to die_.

‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Maybe coming down with something.’

‘Shit. I should just let you…’

Ryan slides back out again. Jon stares at the ceiling, his hands lying loosely on his chest. He’s not going back to sleep, and he’s not sick either. He doesn’t know what to do. Maybe he could lie here for the rest of his life. That could work.

He hears the bedroom-door whisper against the carpet again – Ryan hadn’t closed it fully when he left. He comes back in carrying a mug.

‘I thought. I brought you some tea.’ He pads over to the nightstand and puts the mug down. Jon doesn't drink tea. But then again, Ryan doesn't usually make him stuff. Ryan's not dumb. He's a sensitive little fuck and he knows when something weird's going down. Jon wriggles up into a sitting position, swiping the heel of his hand over his eyes. He thinks he’s decided something.

‘Thanks, man,’ he says.

Ryan hovers uncertainly.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Ryan,’ he says. Is he gonna do this? ‘I’m not sick.’

Shit. He’s gonna do this. 'Sit down,' he says. Ryan sits down gingerly on the edge of the bed.

‘Did something happen with Cass?’ He asks. He’s not looking at Jon.

‘Yeah, kind of. I realised some stuff talking to her.’

‘She wants you back,’ Ryan says flatly. And yeah, of course that’s what he would think. _Duh, Jon_ , he hears Cassie’s voice.

‘No, we’re still on a break.’ he says carefully. ‘No, it was other stuff. It was to do with you.’ Jon clears his throat. ‘Us. Actually.’

Ryan’s eyes widen.

‘Ry. I...’

His heart’s in his mouth, in his knees, in his stomach. He does feel a little sick now. ‘I haven't got it out of my system,’ he says quickly before he can hesitate again.

There’s a long silence before Ryan speaks.

‘Haven’t got what out of your system,’ he says finally. He sounds totally robotic, but Jon can hear the question in his words. He’s stopped fidgeting and is sitting with his hands on his knees, still not looking at Jon. He's not gonna make this easy.

‘You, Ry,’ Jon says. ‘I haven’t got you out of my system.’

He waits for the universe to implode.

There’s a pause. Ryan looks toward the window.

'Why are you telling me this?' says Ryan.

Jon laughs without humour. ‘Fuck, you're really not gonna make this easy,' he says. 'I don't know, Ry. I thought I could ride it out, get over it, whatever. But I can’t, and now it’s… I just wanted you to know. In case it looks like I'm acting creepy. In case it fucks up the band. In case... I don't know. Maybe we should break up. Head it off at the pass.'

‘No!’

It’s just one syllable but Ryan sounds like a thirteen-year-old with poor vocal control and he’s turned to look at Jon for the first time. It’s more emotion than Jon’s heard from Ryan in well, ever, and it makes him smile despite how shitty he’s feeling.

‘No, yeah. Me either,’ he says. ‘I don’t think I actually meant that.’

Ryan leans back on his elbows. Something seems to have loosened in him, between them. He’s staring down the plane of his own stomach.

‘I thought you were straight,’ he says after a while.

Jon laughs, for real this time. He can’t help it, and is relieved to see the corner of Ryan’s mouth twist up wryly.

‘Me too,’ he says. Ryan looks at him sidelong. ‘I am I think. I don't know. Maybe I’m like. Rosso-sexual.’

Ryan lets out an involuntary _huh_ of laughter.

‘Gee. Way to make a girl feel special,’ he says

Jon takes in the stretch of him and thinks about leaning forward and pressing his mouth to Ryan's hip just above the waistband of his jeans. He thinks of Ryan folding up reflexively against the tickle; or of Ryan pushing Jon’s head away and telling him to get the fuck off; or of Ryan sighing and arching up into it. He can't tell what Ryan would do so he stays where he is. He feels itchy. He gets up and paces over to the window, scrubbing his hands through his hair.

He shoves his hands in his pockets, shoulders up round his ears and stares out of the window. Hobo’s being 'stealthy', stalking clumsily along the edge of the bushes at the end of the garden, following something out of sight. Jon watches her and restrains himself from blurting, 'Just tell me what you want, Ross.' He knows he has to be patient, but fuck, Ryan Ross tries it sometimes, he really does.

After a little while he hears the bed squeak and senses Ryan come up beside him at the window. They watch Hobo together.

‘I put them away,’ Ryan says suddenly into the quiet.

Ryan does this sometimes, starts off with a little cryptic message before he decodes himself.

Jon waits.

‘I never thought you would want me like that, so I put my feelings away,’ Ryan says at last, talking fast and quiet, watching Hobo pad across the grass. ‘Sometimes they come out – like in those dumb pictures I forgot to delete. And Spence could always tell. But I’ve been good at hiding, more or less. And it’s been okay. We've both had other people and I mostly forget about the… the Jon-feelings. And even now, here in the canyon, when it’s just been you and me, I can deal, even after…’ He breaks off, tips his forehead against the window pane and closes his eyes. ‘Shit Jon, you surprised the fuck out of me the other night. I never thought. Anyway,’ he breathes out. ‘Even after that I managed to keep it together. And now I’m like, I know that ‘Rossosexual’ thing was a joke, but.' He stops. 'But,' he says again and opens his eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ he says so, so quietly. 'I’m just fucking scared, Jon, that’s all.’

Jon's breath is fogging up the windowpane. He and his brothers used to write words backwards on the living-room window so they could be seen from the street. It used to drive their mom nuts. He doesn't think writing 'dickfuck' or 'moron' would be appropriate just now. He has an incredibly girly urge to draw a love-heart, but thinks that would be pretty stupid too.

Instead he looks down and places his bare foot over Ryan’s weirdass skinny toes. They’re chilly and ticklish against the sole of his foot.

‘I’m glad you didn’t delete those pictures,' he says.

‘Yeah, god,’ Ryan’s quiet laugh is brittle as he looks down at their feet. His toes wriggle under Jon’s but he doesn’t move them away. ‘A few less shots of handsome Jon Walker in the world. What a blow.’

‘No, dumbass,’ Jon says gently. ‘You were all over those pictures too.’

' _A picture can tell you as much about the photographer as about what he or she is photographing_ ,' Ryan says in a stupid lecturing voice.

'Yes, it can Ross,' says Jon nudging closer to him. 'And by the way. Shut up.'

Ryan somehow manages to edge away from Jon and curl towards him simultaneously. Jon leans into the curl and tips his head up to bite gently at Ryan's jaw. 'Ow,' Ryan breathes unconvincingly, and curls towards Jon some more, and Jon tries not to think that everything’s gonna be okay now, because he’s thought that before and been wrong. Still though, maybe this time he might be right.

~

Ryan has a lunch date with Spencer. In the morning Jon comes back from an early runaround with Hobo, bursting into their bedroom where Ryan is half-asleep, naked and warm, wrapped in a sheet. Jon crawls up him, and Ryan slits an eye, still sleepy enough to forget not to smile dopily at him, and Jon says, ‘So, are you and Spence going to talk about manly, business things while me and Brendon stay at home and curl our hair?’

'Dick,' Ryan murmurs, arching like a cat with Jon’s mouth on his throat. Hobo ignores them and noses under one of the pillows. They make out for a while until Ryan whispers 'coffeeee' into the ticklish hollow under Jon's earlobe and they mooch downstairs, leaving Hobo snoozing, still half-under the pillow.

Later, Jon stands by the car to see Ryan off.

‘Play nicely with the littler kids,’ he says.

‘I’ve known him practically since he was an embryo, Jon.’

‘Yeah, but. Sometimes you gotta be nice, even to family.’

‘Yes, Mr Maturity,’ Ryan says. Then he turns to Jon and says ‘hey,’ squinting up at him. ‘Kiss me,’ he says.

Jon looks at him for a second then dips his head down to meet Ryan’s poking out the car window, and they hold the kiss for five beats, soft, warm, Jon’s thumb stroking over Ryan’s cheekbone, and then they separate.

‘Break a leg,’ Jon says, slapping the roof of the car, and Ryan puts the car into gear and pulls away. Jon watches until it’s out of sight.

‘Shit,’ he says softly. Then he goes back into the house, Hobo curls up on the couch and Jon picks up his guitar.

 

 

~end~


End file.
